Mars in three hours - theoretically
By Lester Haines
Published Friday 6th January 2006 15:03Ã‚ GMT

The US military is considering testing the principle behind a type of space drive which holds the promise of reaching Mars in just three hours. The problem is, as New Scientist explains, it's entirely theoretical and many physicists admit they don't understand the science behind it.

Nonetheless, the so-called "hyperdrive" concept won last year's American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics award for the best nuclear and future flight paper. Among its defenders is aerospace engineer Pavlos Mikellides, from the Arizona State University in Tempe. Mikellides, who reviewed the winning paper, said: "Even though such features have been explored before, this particular approach is quite unique."

The basic concept is this: according to the paper's authors - Jochem HÃ¤user, a physicist and professor of computer science at the University of Applied Sciences in Salzgitter and Walter DrÃ¶scher, a retired Austrian patent officer - if you put a huge rotating ring above a superconducting coil and pump enough current through the coil, the resulting large magnetic field will "reduce the gravitational pull on the ring to the point where it floats free".

The origins of this "repulsive anti-gravity force" and the hyperdrive it might power lie in the work of German scientist Burkhard Heim, who - as part of his attempts to reconcile quantum mechanics and Einstein's general theory of relativity - formulated a theoretical six-dimensioned universe by bolting on two new sub-dimensions to Einstein's generally-accepted four (three space, one time).

As New Scientist explains, Heim's two extra dimensions allowed him to couple together gravity and electromagnetism, and permits conversion of electromagnetic energy into gravitational and vice-versa - something not possible according to Einstein's four dimensions, because "you cannot change the strength of gravity simply by cranking up the electromagnetic field".

Heim, then, proposed that "a rotating magnetic field could reduce the influence of gravity on a spacecraft enough for it to take off" - an idea which caught the eye of Wernher von Braun when it was first proposed in 1959 and the rocket scientist was working on the US's Saturn launch vehicle.

After the initial excitement died down, however, Heim moved on to other projects and his hyperdrive theory slowly gathered dust until the arrival of Walter DrÃ¶scher in 1980. DrÃ¶scher expanded on Heim's work, in the process reactivating two further dimensions the latter had originally discarded. Thus "Heim-DrÃ¶scher space" was born - an eight-dimensional concept of which DrÃ¶scher says: "If Heim's picture is to make sense, we are forced to postulate two more fundamental forces."

The said extra forces are: "A repulsive anti-gravity similar to the dark energy that appears to be causing the universe's expansion to accelerate"; and a second resulting from the "interaction of Heim's fifth and sixth dimensions and the extra dimensions that DrÃ¶scher introduced". Crucially, it "produces pairs of 'gravitophotons' - particles that mediate the interconversion of electromagnetic and gravitational energy".

The groundwork done, DrÃ¶scher then teamed up with HÃ¤user to produce the award-winning "Guidelines For a Space Propulsion Device Based on Heim's Quantum Theory."

So far so good - in theory. However, as NS notes: "The majority of physicists have never heard of Heim theory, and most of those contacted by New Scientist said they couldn't make sense of DrÃ¶scher and HÃ¤user's description of the theory behind their proposed experiment."

Furthermore, DrÃ¶scher and HÃ¤user's proposed practical experiment to prove their theory requires "a magnetic coil several metres in diameter capable of sustaining an enormous current density" - something which the majority of engineers say is "not feasible with existing materials and technology".*

So, Mars in three hours? As NS puts it: "DrÃ¶scher is hazy about the details", but "suggests that a spacecraft fitted with a coil and ring could be propelled into a multidimensional hyperspace" where "the constants of nature could be different, and even the speed of light could be several times faster than we experience". Then, he says, a quick three-hour jaunt to Mars would indeed be on the cards. Â®

Bootnote
*Roger Lenard, a space propulsion researcher at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico does think it might be possible, though, using an X-ray generator called the Z machine which "could probably generate the necessary field intensities and gradients".

it's reminding me to Podkletnov but seems to be based on theories which sound similar to modern multidimensional quantum theories and cosmologic theories. But none of these has been able yet to unify the gravitational force with the other forces.

Three hours to Mars this would mean 55,000,000 km / (3 * 3600 seconds) = 55,000,000/10800 km/s = 550,000/108 km/s = 5,092.593 km/s - or around that when Mars is closest to Earth. This is much less than c. when Mars is farthes from Earth it would mean 400,000,000/10800 km/s = 4,000,000/108 km/s = 37037,037 km/s which still is less than c too.

So up to now the major problem seems to be the Podkletnov-like theory.

But if it realy works - could it be used for manned flights? The article plus the Bootnote are sounding as if extreme intense X-rays were required.

It sounds nice.. but still.. only a theory.. but if their assumptions (don't know if they consider it based on all facts, I guess not) seem to be right, than it's definitely something to consider testing in space in the future

It's interesting that this made it into The Register, but then again, Podkletnov made it into Wired Magazine (and yes, Ekke, this sounds identical). So until somebody gets published in Nature, I'm not going to hold my breath.

In the story (two books), humanity achieved a sudden breakthrough (wormhole technology) which enabled us to colonise the stars. The ironies of the breakthrough was how the inventors, two PhD grad students in USC, choose to open a worm hole to Mars at the exact moment the first Nasa astronaut was about to make landfall. His "One small step" moment interupted by two grad students!

Anyway, it did remind me of other earlier article written by a physicist on the growth of human knowledge. He remarked that many scientists in the world narrowly focus on a particular field of study, much like a farmer tending to small patch of land. Now and then, a Einstein comes along like a nuclear bomb, clearing and rearranging the landscape . Knowledge, like evolution in incremental growth, interuppted by dramatic leaps.

"Currently ApNano can manufacture only a few kilograms of the new material a day at their lab in Nes Ziona. In an interview by IsraCast, Dr. Menachem Genut, ApNano CEO, explained that the company is moving into semi-industrial manufacturing within the next six months producing between 100-200 kilograms of the material per day, gradually moving to full-scale industrial production by 2007, creating several tons each day. Although it is currently still hard to determine the exact price of the "nano-armor" when in full industrial production, given the cost of the original materials (Tungsten Disulfide, Titanium Disulfide, etc.) and the relatively low production costs, Dr. Genut stated that a kilogram of the new material will cost considerably less than a similar amount of the carbon-based Fullerenes. More field testing will need to be carried out before the nano-armor can be declared commercial but the company is optimistic that with some external financial backing it will be possible to have the first product ready in less then three years."

Hi Forum - just popping in to say that meanwhile, back at PHYSORG, all hell has been breaking loose on this idea - but more on the mass formula aspect than the space propulsion one. However, recall that a condition of it getting funding for the drive experiment is essentially to get some publicaitons on the particle mass formula. We might not be far off that now - see http://forum.physorg.com/index.php?show ... entry73543

In between I recognised a small difference to Podketnov and though about a difference of it to the scientific result that dark energy seems to enable warp drives. That result included the finding, that dark energy equal to the mass of Jupiter is required which seems to be unrealistic.

But what is discussed here seems to require much less than the warp drive - if and when it is found out what dark energy is, how to get access to it and how to control it.

As long as nobody works on Heim's Theory (HT) in an accepted scientific manner, we will never find out if anything of it is true. Apparently HÃ¤user and DrÃ¶scher refuse to respond to (and to correct) errors that have been found in their extensions of HT.
(see http://www.mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de/~bruhn/IGW.html)

Another interesting point to consider regarding the "award" that DrÃ¶scher/HÃ¤user got from the AIAA is the fact, that one of the authors - Jochem HÃ¤user - is a member of the very "NUCLEAR & FUTURE FLIGHT PROPULSION TECHNICAL COMMITTEE" that gave away the award.
(see http://www.aiaa.org/content.cfm?pageid=234&id=81)

To me this smells "fishy".

edit: and their "winning" paper can be considered a malicious fraud, because it states that they are both part of the IGW (Institut fÃ¼r Grenzgebiete der Wissenschaft) (I can't really translate this accurately, but it means something like "institute for things on the fringe of known science") which they say is part of the "Leopold - Franzens UniversitÃ¤t Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria".
This is NOT the case. As stated in the first link in my post, this appears to be a trick they have used to gain scientific acceptance.